2/4/14 5:31 PM EST

In an interview with Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday, O'Reilly said Milbank "is a weasel in my opinion, beneath contempt."

"The fact that the Washington Post would employ a guy like that -- it's really disturbing," O'Reilly said. "If the Washington Post editors watched the interview... they had to know that Milbank was lying, and they had to know he was lying for a reason, that he's a far-left zealot."

"It's OK to be a liberal columnist, but once you cross the line into lying... the paper's got to take action," O'Reilly said. (His remarks came moments after he told Hewitt, "I never attack anyone personally.")

In his column, Milbank bemoaned O'Reilly's confrontational style and the fact that he dedicated so much time to conservative cat-nip issues like the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, the bungled HealthCare.gov rollout, and the IRS's targeting of conservative groups.

"O’Reilly devoted nearly 40 percent of his time to the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, 30 percent to the Obamacare rollout and 20 percent to IRS targeting," Milbank wrote. "Along the way, he interrupted the president 42 times, by my count — although, given the amount O’Reilly spoke, it may be more accurate to say Obama was interrupting him."

Milbank's colleague Jonathan Capehart later wrote that Milbank "put his finger on exactly what was wrong with Bill O’Reilly’s pre-Super Bowl interview with President Obama."